Monday, April 22, 2013

Repo Man (1984)

Young punk Otto (Emilio Estevez) has just stumbled into the most intense new job - repossessing cars! Oh and what a time to join the profession as everyone in Los Angeles is on the trail of a mysterious Chevy Malibu with something even more mysterious in the trunk.

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As historian Carey McWilliams stated, “God never intended Southern California to be anything but desert…Man has made it what it is.” Prior to irrigation, Southern California was a veritable blank slate. Gradually over the course of decades, numerous villages/neighborhoods spread, bled and merged with one another forming one giant un-unified sub/urban sprawl. Here it is possible to find Spanish next to Tudor next to Mid-Century. Here one can eat in a restaurant designed after a parasol. Via the freeways you can travel from a small Mexican village to the year 3000 in a matter of minutes (traffic permitting). Living in Southern California, one gradually comes to accept strangeness as a part of everyday life. Eventually that which was once strange becomes…common...or at least to we native Angelenos. God bless British ex-pat Alex Cox for making Repo Man and reminding us how weird it all really is. And with one hell of a soundtrack too! If you love this movie, please pick up the new Criterion blu-ray. It's the most intense packaging I've ever seen, but then again Repo Man's always intense.